These are people who advertise on Fiverr to post "reviews", whether favorable for your product or negative against your competitors' products.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/shopping-and-consumer-news/11939070/Amazon-sues-more-than-1000-people-over-fake-reviews.html
The poor "genuine" reviews on Amazon are bad enough - meaning bad ratings where the buyer was disappointed because they didn't bother to read product descriptions, they use products for purposes they're not designed for, etc. "I thought this would be bigger", when the size is clearly provided in the listing. "Expected a longer book" when the number of pages is clearly shown (or "this book is too long!"). "This book is for beginners" which you can clearly tell from the description, and that kind of thing. One reviewer even said "A wonderful product at a fabulous price" with no other critical commentary, and then they only gave it 3 stars!
Then there are 5-star ratings where people say "I just got this doohickey/book and I haven't actually used/read it yet, but I think it will be wonderful."
These people ruin the value of the rating system just as much as the review-peddlers do. No matter what the "average number of stars" is, you have to dig into the reviews individually to assess their validity.
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Since my partner is the one I spoke about last week and Bill did an article on her (sort of), I thought I'd ask her what she thought.
Here's what she said...
Reviews boost your rankings and if you have ALL the other parts in alignment (Good Product Title, Good Features [bullet points], a Good Product Description, and proper Product Photos), you can get your product on the first couple of pages for certain keywords. So when a visitor searches for a product using certain keywords, it's to your advantage to have believable reviews so they "pull the trigger" and purchase your product.
How you get reviews is a whole other story. Just for your info, yes... you can buy reviews from certain companies (besides Fiver) that have a group of people who will purchase your product (usually for a reduced cost or very encouraging sales price), try it out, and then through their Amazon account will write their review. In fact, there are individual people who make their living doing this and Amazon actually acknowledges them and don't have an issue with them at all.
The folks involved in the Fiver issue were just stupid and Amazon decided to make then an example. And in my opinion, it was a good idea they did.
When my partner listed her pet product, she knew she needed at least 25-30 reviews to really gain momentum in her sales. So, she first went to family and friends who had dogs and would purchase and then review the product... for real. She did nothing else.
I think she now has around 90 reviews, most of which are 4 and 5 star. YES, there will always be some people who aren't satisfied with anything. But here's the thing... early on, my partner had some issues with the flashlight part of leash. It seems that for the 9 LED light to get powered properly, the batteries had to be put in just right. About 1 out of every 50 leashes sold had a flashlight that didn't turn on. What did my partner do?
First, she contacted the Chinese manufacturer and told them about the issue. They started right away redesigning the battery chamber. She also had the manufacturer send her replacement lights for free and then when an Amazon customer replied to one of her automated emails sent to the buying customer that the light wasn't working, she personally shipped out a replacement. Often, this won her big points with the customer and some even ended up in very positive reviews. Nice.
So... now she has 4,000 leashes in route to the US via boat to get ready for the Christmas buying season. She as also added two more branded products that seemingly go with the leash and are a no brainer for a customer to buy as an add on once they buy the leash.
Here's the REALLY interesting thing she's done so far...
She has taken all her profits and re-invested them in more inventory and other products. Remember... the money to scale your product line has to come from somewhere. And in keeping with her goal of have about 10 related products each selling about $10,000/month, I think she's on track to do this by the end of next year.
With an average profit margin of at least 50%, including all the fees she must pay with some advertising. Not bad. That's about $600,000/year in profit, of which I'm sure she will take part of to continue to add more products and scale her business.
And this... all in about 2-3 hours per day, very part-time. WOW!
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/shopping-and-consumer-news/11939070/Amazon-sues-more-than-1000-people-over-fake-reviews.html
The poor "genuine" reviews on Amazon are bad enough - meaning bad ratings where the buyer was disappointed because they didn't bother to read product descriptions, they use products for purposes they're not designed for, etc. "I thought this would be bigger", when the size is clearly provided in the listing. "Expected a longer book" when the number of pages is clearly shown (or "this book is too long!"). "This book is for beginners" which you can clearly tell from the description, and that kind of thing. One reviewer even said "A wonderful product at a fabulous price" with no other critical commentary, and then they only gave it 3 stars!
Then there are 5-star ratings where people say "I just got this doohickey/book and I haven't actually used/read it yet, but I think it will be wonderful."
These people ruin the value of the rating system just as much as the review-peddlers do. No matter what the "average number of stars" is, you have to dig into the reviews individually to assess their validity.
*****************************************************
Since my partner is the one I spoke about last week and Bill did an article on her (sort of), I thought I'd ask her what she thought.
Here's what she said...
Reviews boost your rankings and if you have ALL the other parts in alignment (Good Product Title, Good Features [bullet points], a Good Product Description, and proper Product Photos), you can get your product on the first couple of pages for certain keywords. So when a visitor searches for a product using certain keywords, it's to your advantage to have believable reviews so they "pull the trigger" and purchase your product.
How you get reviews is a whole other story. Just for your info, yes... you can buy reviews from certain companies (besides Fiver) that have a group of people who will purchase your product (usually for a reduced cost or very encouraging sales price), try it out, and then through their Amazon account will write their review. In fact, there are individual people who make their living doing this and Amazon actually acknowledges them and don't have an issue with them at all.
The folks involved in the Fiver issue were just stupid and Amazon decided to make then an example. And in my opinion, it was a good idea they did.
When my partner listed her pet product, she knew she needed at least 25-30 reviews to really gain momentum in her sales. So, she first went to family and friends who had dogs and would purchase and then review the product... for real. She did nothing else.
I think she now has around 90 reviews, most of which are 4 and 5 star. YES, there will always be some people who aren't satisfied with anything. But here's the thing... early on, my partner had some issues with the flashlight part of leash. It seems that for the 9 LED light to get powered properly, the batteries had to be put in just right. About 1 out of every 50 leashes sold had a flashlight that didn't turn on. What did my partner do?
First, she contacted the Chinese manufacturer and told them about the issue. They started right away redesigning the battery chamber. She also had the manufacturer send her replacement lights for free and then when an Amazon customer replied to one of her automated emails sent to the buying customer that the light wasn't working, she personally shipped out a replacement. Often, this won her big points with the customer and some even ended up in very positive reviews. Nice.
So... now she has 4,000 leashes in route to the US via boat to get ready for the Christmas buying season. She as also added two more branded products that seemingly go with the leash and are a no brainer for a customer to buy as an add on once they buy the leash.
Here's the REALLY interesting thing she's done so far...
She has taken all her profits and re-invested them in more inventory and other products. Remember... the money to scale your product line has to come from somewhere. And in keeping with her goal of have about 10 related products each selling about $10,000/month, I think she's on track to do this by the end of next year.
With an average profit margin of at least 50%, including all the fees she must pay with some advertising. Not bad. That's about $600,000/year in profit, of which I'm sure she will take part of to continue to add more products and scale her business.
And this... all in about 2-3 hours per day, very part-time. WOW!
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